A. Technical Field
The present invention pertains generally to web browsers, and relates more particularly to a hierarchical model for navigation in web browsers.
B. Background of the Invention
The widespread availability of a graphical web browser was in a large part responsible for the rapid expansion of the World Wide Web. Deployed as a software application, a web browser provides a user with a graphical user interface (GUI) from which to access information published to the Internet.
The GUI design of the pioneering web browser NCSA Mosaic was so intuitive that the browser made access to the web possible even for users who were not experienced with networks and software applications. Although many different web browser implementations exist today, and browsers are now used to access many different kinds of electronically published content, the current set of browsers all have a set of common GUI features that were present originally in NCSA Mosaic.
A large subset of the common browser GUI features support a user's navigation to electronically published content. Each piece of published content is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), and a browser can be directed to a piece of content in response to a user entering that URI into the address bar of the browser GUI. Studies of web browser usage behavior have shown that, during a web browsing session, a typical user's navigation pattern (the user's web session browse history) is to visit and then re-visit a set of URIs frequently. Since URIs often are long and complex, it would be very tedious and time-consuming if the only way for a user to re-visit a URI required the user to re-enter the URI into the address bar of the browser's GUI. This is why an important subset of common browser GUI features enables a user to access a portion of the web session browse history so that a user may re-visit a URI by selecting from a displayed list of URIs that were previously visited during the browse session. Examples of these features include the navigation bar (“navbar”), presenting a Forward Button and a Back Button, and the session history display accessed from the main toolbar of the browser GUI.
Electronically published content is increasing in both amount and complexity. Because of the ubiquitous use of browsers to access electronically published content, it is important for a browser GUI to be able to provide optimally efficient navigation support to a user. Being able to provide efficient access to a comprehensive web session browse history is one way to accomplish this goal.